In the jewelry business, precious and semiprecious stones are typically stored in paper envelopes or in small plastic or polyethylene bags. Such containers do not protect their contents from sharp blows or pressure nor do they provide one-handed access to their contents.
Self closing purses for holding coins and ash, including those that are operable with one hand, are known in the art. Coin purses have been constructed from two aligned sheets of flexible plastic material that are sealed around their edges. In one design, a slot is oriented along one margin of the coin purse, for example, the top, while the other three edges are sealed together. U.S. Pat. No. 2,720,903 discloses an ash receptacle formed from two sheets of plastic material sealed along three sides. The top or fourth side remains unsealed and has a bulbous portion formed therealong to assist in maintaining the receptacle closed. U.S. Pat. No. 3,272,278 teaches a plastic bag comprising two sheets of material that are similarly sealed along three sides. The bag described therein has stays to hold the sheets closely together at adjacent unsealed edges to ensure a fairly tight closing.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,063,487 discloses a molded plastic change purse construction having a thickened beaded portion formed at its access opening. This thickened portion is adapted to direct coins contained within the purse toward the extremities of the purse opening. The extremities of the purse opening are said to be at a location where the purse closure has the greatest resilient closing force. Thus, the beaded portion assists in keeping the purse in closed.
Common to all of these designs is a sealing member to keep the container closed. It would be desirable to have a self closing receptacle that does not require a sealing member to retain objects of three significant dimensions therein. It would also be desirable to have a receptacle that protects its contents from sharp blows or pressure, provides one-handed access to its contents and has a rigidly bulbous internal cavity.